Satellite Cybersecurity Act of 2025
What changed between versions
The strategy in section 5 was redefined from 'address and improve the cybersecurity of commercial satellite systems' to 'support coordination, information sharing, and voluntary best practices among Federal agencies and private sector stakeholders.' This reframes the entire bill as a non-regulatory coordination effort.
Two new rules of construction were added: (3) nothing authorizes rulemaking or regulatory requirements including enforcement actions or conditions on licenses/permits for commercial satellite systems, and (4) nothing modifies or expands existing authorities of CFIUS or the Committee for Assessment of Foreign Participation in US Telecommunications Services Sector.
The clearinghouse coordination was changed from the Chair of the FCC and the Director of CISA to the Secretary of Homeland Security. A purpose clause was added specifying it serves as a repository for 'publicly available resources, guidance, frameworks, voluntary recommendations, and tools.'
The Office of Science and Technology Policy was added as a consultation entity in section 3(c) and as a coordinating party for the strategy in section 5. The Director of NIST was added to implementation coordination in section 4(d). The FCC was removed from all coordination roles.
The GAO report in section 3(b) now has a new paragraph (2) stating it 'shall not include recommendations described in paragraph (1)(H) for new or changing authorities or regulations for Federal agencies,' explicitly limiting what the study can recommend.
A new clearinghouse requirement (F) was added: it may not contain sensitive security or proprietary information without an established gateway to limit access to approved users.
Clearinghouse content item (K) was limited to recommendations 'only for the purpose described in subsection (b)(1),' restricting the scope of what can be included.
The name of the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act was corrected to 'Critical Infrastructures Protection Act' (added an 's'), and 'Department of Commerce' was changed to lowercase 'department of commerce' in a section heading.
